A family christmas
by New Neon
Summary: "It's not that I don't want you to meet my family, really." Zoro insists with wide, earnest gold eyes shining pleadingly. "It's just that you won't let me come visit when you're home for Christmas, despite the fact that you told me you'd all be doing nothing for the whole week so you're not even busy." Sanji says flatly.


"It's not that I don't want you to meet my family, really." Zoro insists with wide, earnest gold eyes shining pleadingly.

"It's just that you won't let me come visit when you're home for Christmas, despite the fact that you told me you'd all be doing nothing for the whole week so you're not even busy." Sanji says flatly, folding his arms and glaring at his boyfriend.

"But it's not like you're not gonna see me, I'm coming over on the 27th to see you and Zeff!" Zoro argues. The isn't the ideal place to be standing around having an argument, at a bus stop in the pouring freezing rain with passers-by eyeballing them as they go. Everyone loves watching other people's drama.

"You've met Zeff before, LOADS of times! Frankly the way you two gang up on picking on me is starting to wind me up, it's not fair that you two get on so well." Sanji snaps, rubbing his head in frustration. Zoro's been over to his place loads of times when Zeff has visited and they've had numerous dinners with Zeff, not to mention Zoro talking to the old man at the restaurant.

"I like Zeff, he's cool and grumpy, plus he can almost drink me under the table!" Zoro beams happily.

"This is about YOUR family, not mine!" Sanji shouts, waving his arms. He's not going to get off topic on this, it's important.

Zoro's face falls, he's finally starting to realize that he can't win this fight.

"Look, I really like you okay? I don't want to fuck this up-" Zoro says, catching Sanji's hand but the blonde pulls it away and glares at him.

"You've got a funny way of showing it!" the blonde says sharply.

"Okay, FINE! Do what you want, I'm not arguing with you anymore." Zoro says in his stiff quiet voice. The other man turns around and stalks off into the night.

"FINE!" Sanji shouts at his retreating back and gets a distant 'FINE' thrown back at him again.

Sanji stomps back to Zeff's in the rain, it's too wet to walk all of the way to his, being around other people on the bus in unappealing and it's probably best that he doesn't spend the night sitting alone in his home stewing over their argument. The night had all started so well. They had met up for dinner, had a good time, drank really nice strong wine together. It was all great until they talked about their plans for seeing each other over the holiday period and Sanji had asked teasingly when he was going to see Zoro's family. It had started out lighthearted but the more Zoro evaded or tried to dissuade him the angrier Sanji had become.

He lets himself into Zeff's home and kicks off his shoes, they bounce off of the wall as he does it. He throws his coat at the coat rack and stomps into the main room. He ignores Zeff sitting in his armchair and instead falls face first onto the sofa, screams into the cushion and kicks his legs against the seat in impotent anger.

"Goodness, it must be the 90s, I have a five year old again." Zeff says dryly and turns up the volume on the TV.

"I HATE ZORO!" Sanji shouts, lifting his face from the sofa to do so.

"Also news from the past. The two of you mutually annoy each other and that's why you love him. It's disgustingly sappy and loud." Zeff grumbles.

"He doesn't want me to meet his family, after he's met you so many times too!" the blonde fumes, still unable to believe that Zoro outright said that he wasn't allowed to see them.

"Not everyone has family as brilliant as yours, I am after all much better than you in every way." Zeff smirks and Sanji glares at him.

"You know... that green haired little weirdo is the only person that you've ever brought back that is any good for you. He kicks your ass enough to keep you in line. Plus he has good taste in booze." Zeff muses. Sanji scowls. He's about to say something like 'well why don't you date him then' but that will probably get some kind of 'if I was twenty years younger' response that will make Sanji vomit himself inside out.

"What're you trying to say?" He says instead, his fingers gripping a cushion tightly.

"I'm saying don't fuck this up, little eggplant. Why are you in my house anyway?" The old man asks him with a prod of his peg leg to Sanji's side.

"We had an argument, I didn't want to go home. Can I stay here?" Sanji sniffs, the cold getting to him a little. That's the only reason why he's sniffling goddamnit.

"You practically still live here anyway. I should change the locks or something. You want wine?" Zeff sighs, getting out of his seat.

"Please." Sanji sighs and sits up on the sofa properly. There is a pop as Zeff opens a nice bottle of Merlot.

It's Christmas Eve when Zoro texts him.

_'Sorry I was a dick but youre an asshole'_

Sanji starts typing before realizing that Zoro is trying to bait him into a reply by leaving himself out for obvious innuendo that he knows Sanji will find it almost impossible to resist. Sneaky bastard.

That day sees two more messages from Zoro. The man is actually apologizing for a change, he seems pretty serious about it too. Sanji would forgive him if Zoro had said anything about his denial being unreasonable or offering to let Sanji meet his family after all. Instead Zoro just apologizes for the argument, for ruining the evening, for upsetting Sanji. He's not apologizing for what Sanji is really upset about.

He and Zeff spend Christmas morning together and open their presents, it's homely and nice, just like when Sanji was a kid only with more alcohol. The two of them cook Christmas lunch and with their combined skills have probably the most amazing meal that anyone in the world is having today, a bonus of two world class chefs being related.

Come the afternoon though Sanji is restless and he, in a perhaps sliiighly inebriated state he decides that he'll go see Zoro. He doesn't drive of course because that would be highly irresponsible and dangerous thing to do. He's not drunk but he is over the limit and perhaps a little on the tipsy side. He knows where Zoro lives because there was a thing about six months back where Sanji and Zeff were away and he needed something delivered and Zoro agreed to... blah blah blah, it's a long dull story, but the point is that he has Zoro's home address. So he hails a taxi and then goes out there.

In his head he plans how it's going to go. He's going to confront Zoro and then meet his family, he's going to be aggressively polite to all of them. He knows that Zoro has a sister and a father and that he still lives with both. Like Sanji they're missing a mother but Zoro admits that it's so long ago that if it wasn't for pictures he wouldn't even know what she looks like.

When he meets Zoro's family he'll have no choice but to either accept that they've both taken that step in their relationship or else admit that his real reasoning for not letting him meet them is that Zoro's not that into him. If that's the case then Sanji will break up with him on the spot.

All of those thoughts fall out of his head though when the cab pulls up outside this grandiose gothic CASTLE. The place looks HUGE. It's really some kind of country estate but it's designed to look like something out of an old school Dracula film. There is literally gargoyles on the side of the building and red stained glass windows, it is absolutely the most sinister and ostentatious place that Sanji has ever seen.

"I- is this the right place?" Sanji asks in wide eyed wonder. The taxi driver shrugs and points to his satnav. Sanji is about to question it when he spots a shining bronze plate above a letter box in the wall by the huge wrought iron gate that says Roronoa on it. Sanji thanks the driver and hands him the notes before climbing out of the cab.

Sanji whistles in awe. Is this why Zoro hadn't wanted to have him over? Was he worried about freaking Sanji out about the fact that his family is clearly loaded? Furthermore if Zoro's family is loaded then Zoro has absolutely no excuse to wear such shitty worn out clothes. Sanji swears to god that he sees the same two pairs of black jeans on rotation every day of his life, not to mention t-shirts so threadbare that in the white ones he can actually see the change in skin tone between Zoro's chest and his nipples. In fairness he wouldn't mind that last bit so much if it wasn't for the fact that everyone else can see too!

He pushes on the gate and to his surprise finds that it swings open easily, automatic motors coming on as soon as he puts a little pressure on it. He walks up the dark crunching gravel driveway as he heads towards the large mahogany doors of the castle.

There's black iron hinges on the doors and a huge black door knocker in the shape of a gargoyle. Sanji lifts it and then lets it fall, it lands with a huge bang and several smaller ones as the impact makes it jump back a few times. Sanji winces back but hears high heeled shoes come to the door. With an ominous creak it opens and a girl peers out.

The girl has thick black eyeliner on with bright red lipstick. Her hair is a pastel pink and tied up in pigtails with black skull bobbles. It hangs down in ringlets to her gothic and yet pink clothes. Sanji is suddenly not sure if he is at the right place.

"Uh- um, is... is Zoro here? Sorry to interrupt you on Christmas day I just-" Sanji flounders. What's he doing? He's barging in on Zoro's family, or at least this pretty girl on Christmas day. What is wrong with him?

"Oh! You're here to see Zoro? He's my brother but no one eeeever visits him because he's a jerk. Who're you?" She grins, leaning against the door frame. Sanji sees a flash of Zoro's smirk in the lilt of her mouth, they don't look a lot alike but there was something there.

"Oh, I'm Sanji." Sanji says with a smile, holding out his hand for her.

"Perona." The girl responds, shaking his hand daintily.

"I've heard about you from Zoro." Sanji says brightly, he doesn't mention that lots of it has been Zoro complaining about her.

"Oh. Great. All good things I'm sure." Perona says with a roll of her eyes. It seems that she knows her younger brother pretty well. It surprises Sanji that she's older because she looks younger, but it could be her cutesy goth demeanor fooling him.

"I've heard nothing about you though, not even your name. Who are you?" Perona says, narrowing her eyes at him suspiciously. Sanji's heart twinges in pain, Zoro's not even told them about him? That hurts.

"I'm his boyfriend." Sanji says quickly and instantly regrets his words when Perona's eyes widen in shock.

"Zoro's DATING guys?!" She squawks in absolute shock, the volume of her voice making Sanji jolt.

Oh. Oh god. She didn't know and Sanji just outed Zoro to his sister. Zoro hasn't come out to them yet, no WONDER he didn't want him to meet them, he'd have to explain who Sanji was.

"I- oh- haha, I was just joking. Hah, we're just... friends?" Sanji tries to backpedal as panic floods his system. What has he done? What has he done?!

"The hell you are! Ohmygod! I have to tell Dad!" She squeaks and grabs Sanji by the wrist, yanking him inside. Sanji tries desperately to make up some lie that will convince her that he's not dating her brother.

"DAD ZORO IS DATING A GUY AND THIS IS HIM!" Perona yells as she skids into the kitchen with Sanji dragged behind her.

Sanji staggers to stand upright and stares at the tall dark haired man standing in the kitchen. He is by far the most ominous looking man that Sanji has ever seen. He has the same sharp gold eyes as Zoro does, only his are deadly and dangerous looking compared to Zoro's milder ones. Sanji never thought that he would describe any part of Zoro as mild. The stare that he is giving Sanji is absolutely pinning Sanji to the ground.

"You are dating my son?" The man says after a few moments, in a deep voice that makes Sanji feel about two inches tall.

"I- um, no that's... We're friends." Sanji squeaks.

"You're lying, but you brought wine so I'll forgive you." the man says, holding out his hand.

Sanji uneasily steps forward and hands over the nice bottle of wine that he'd brought. The dark haired man looks at it critically for a moment before uncorking it and pouring it into four wine glasses. He holds one up and swirls it around in the glass for a moment before taking a sniff.

"You have good taste." The man says smoothly.

"Uh. Thank you, sir." Sanji says nervously.

"Oh boy, I'm gonna get Zoro. He's gonna freak when he sees you here!" Perona laughs loudly and leans into the hallway.

"ZORO! ZORO GET YOUR BUTT DOWN HERE!" She shrieks at the top of her lungs, making Sanji jump. He glances at Zoro's father and sees the man grit his teeth and sigh, like this happens far too often. Just then there's another flash of Zoro on the man's face that exasperated irritation that Sanji knows so well. Looking at his build he's not too dissimilar from Zoro, and something about the way that he holds himself reminds Sanji of him too, perhaps the shape of his mouth is like Zoro's. He doubts that if Zoro let his facial hair grow that he'd get anything as dramatic as his father though.

"FOR FUCK'S SAKE PERONA, SHUT YOUR HARPY VOICE, YOU'RE GONNA BREAK ALL THE WINDOWS IN HERE!" Zoro's voice yells back from a reasonable distance. Sanji grins because, yeah, that's his Zoro.

"DON'T TALK TO ME LIKE THAT YOU LITTLE SHIT, GET IN HERE!" Perona screeches indignantly, her fists clenching tight.

"I AM BUSY!"

"DOING WHAT?!"

Sanji's phone pings and he pulls it out of his pocket. It's a text from Zoro.

'i'm really sorry, okay? Talk to me?'

"I can guess what he's doing." Zoro's father says with a small devious smile on his face. Sanji flushes red.

"Do, ah, do you get a lot of this shouting going on?" Sanji asks nervously, as Zoro and Perona continue yelling at each other across the house.

"I invest heavily in migraine medication and wine." he says in a long suffering manner as he rubs his temples.

"YOU'VE GOT A GUEST YOU STUPID MUSCLE BRAIN, GET OVER HERE!" Perona shouts.

"I AM GOING TO COME OUT THERE AND PUNCH YOU IN THE- AGH!" Zoro yelps when he catches sight of Sanji in the kitchen.

"I'm really sorry I shouldn't have come." Sanji blurts out in horror.

"Noooo, what did you say?" Zoro asks in utter horror, but Sanji realizes that Zoro isn't looking at him but at his father behind Sanji.

"I have been perfectly polite, unlike you. You didn't even tell me that your boyfriend was coming over, Zoro." The man says primly and Sanji watches Zoro go white.

"I didn't know that he was!" Zoro argues back, making Sanji wince in guilt.

"I am so sorry, I didn't know that they didn't know about..." Sanji whispers in dread.

"What? Oh we don't care about that, well, we care that Zoro didn't TELL us about you like the big fat jerk that he is. I'm just happy that he is interacting with other people, regardless of how he's 'interacting' with them." Perona giggles behind her hand.

"Shut it! Stop talking to him right now or- ack!" Zoro is suddenly in a headlock from his sister and flailing miserably. Sanji stares in awe, he's never seen anyone catch Zoro like that, it's like she went through him or something. She's viciously rubbing her knuckles into his hair as Zoro tries to back out of her grip. With a bout of particularly enthusiastic swearing and shoving Zoro finally manages to get free and turns his gaze straight to Sanji.

"Okay, no you have to go, it's been nice seeing you, in fact I'll go with you, let's both go!" Zoro says quickly, grabbing Sanji by the shoulders and marching him to the door.

"He will do no such thing, Zoro you don't have any manners." the older man says firmly, making Zoro halt in his tracks.

"Mihawk, look-" Zoro starts to argue.

"Zoro, I'm your father. Don't call me by my name like that, when you were little you used to call me Daddy, what happened to that?" Mihawk says as he elegantly twirls the wine around in his glass. Zoro buries his head between Sanji's shoulder blades and makes a noise like a dying whale.

"Don't do this, I really like him and if you two talk to him then he'll run a mile like any sane person would." Zoro shouts. Sanji suddenly catches on, this wasn't about Zoro not wanting to introduce him because he was ashamed of Sanji, he didn't want to introduce Sanji to his family because he was ashamed of them. Sanji feels the biggest most evil grin spread onto his face.

"Oh Zoro, but it'd be rude to just leave after I got here. I should really talk to your family, they seem so nice." Sanji grins at Zoro. Zoro looks at Sanji with an expression of utter betrayal.

"I like him." Perona giggles.

"And he brings good wine." Mihawk agrees as he takes a sip.

"He's cute too, you must be good in bed to keep him around." Zoro sister smirks. She probably says something else but Sanji is too busy being doubled over in laughter from the look of complete mortification that Zoro is wearing.

"Come and sit down, I'm sure I have some good cheese for this wine." Mihawk muses as he turns to look in the fridge. Zoro miserably trudges to one of the tall kitchen chairs and sits at the table there, the room is huge and Sanji can't help but fantasize about having a space this big or the money to own it. Think of all the high end machinery he could get in here...

Sanji settles into his place on the chair and takes the wine glass that Mihawk offers him. Sanji looks curiously at Zoro and Perona who are quietly bickering about Sanji being there, Perona on the side of being indignant that Zoro hasn't ever brought him around before or, you know, mentioned him at all. Zoro is arguing back that he's avoided doing that because Perona is _awful_.

The two siblings are interesting. Both of them are stubborn and argumentative, they clearly have that in common but it's their appearance that's puzzling Sanji. Zoro's eyes are reasonably like his father's but his skin is darker whilst Perona's is the same pale colour as her father's. This all makes sense, the parts of them that don't look like Mihawk no doubt show a resemblance to their mother. Sanji knows that the pair of them are full siblings but he has no idea how they have such opposite and unnatural hair colours. He knows that Zoro's is natural, despite its weird shade, his eyebrows and eyelashes are the same as well as other... body hair that he has. Looking at Perona he can tell that hers is natural too, her eyelashes and eyebrows also are the same candy pink as her hair. How on earth can they both have such bizarre colours naturally? Did Mihawk fuck a unicorn or something?

"I can't believe that my little baby brother has got a _boyfriend_ it's so cute!" Perona squeals, leaning in and pinching Zoro's cheek. Sanji gets to see the split second where horror, embarrassment and rage vie for domination of Zoro's face, with rage eventually winning out.

"GET OFF!" Zoro yowls, smacking her hand away.

"Not cute." Perona sniffs at him, rubbing at her hand.

"Good!" he shouts loudly.

"So how did you two meet?" Mihawk asks, interrupting their argument to direct the question to Zoro.

"I... uh. I was in a bar fight on New Year's Eve last year and I missed the guy I was aiming for and punched Sanji in the face instead." Zoro admits with a groan.

"And I never let you live it down." Sanji chirps happily.

"I'm not even slightly surprised." Mihawk notes with a sigh.

"You are by far the least romantic person that I know." Perona groans at him.

"HEY! He agreed to date me afterwards so I can't be that bad." the man points out defensively.

"It was probably the head trauma, you gave the poor boy brain damage." his sister snaps at him. Sanji frowns, he doesn't know whether to laugh at that or feel vaguely offended.

"What do you do for a living Sanji?" Mihawk asks smoothly in the deep classy baritone that is not unlike Zoro's own. Sanji has a fleeting moment of horror as he realises that Zoro's dad is kind of... hot in and older guy sort of way. He vows to never ever tell Zoro that.

"I'm a chef. My old man and I own the Baratie, it's the best restaurant in the city." Sanji says proudly.

"Is that so?" Mihawk says and Sanji gets the idea that it's not so much a question as it is an observation of Sanji's statement. Mihawk doesn't stare him down, he just watches him unblinkingly.

"Cut it out, he's not bragging. The two of them are absolutely the best." Zoro says in his most serious voice. Sanji goes bright red. Zoro isn't usually one to compliment him like this so hearing him do so hits Sanji right in his weak spots.

"Aww, he's cute!" Perona squeaks, catching Sanji's expression and only serving to turn him redder.

"Hm. Maybe we should visit this restaurant of yours, I don't tend to go out to the city much." Mihawk says thoughtfully, stroking his elegant facial hair in thought.

"Psh, yeah because you're a grumpy antisocial bastard." His daughter snorts in a most unladylike way. Sanji tries to suppress his grin and just looks at Zoro out of the corner of his eye through the curtain of his hair. Zoro is scowling.

"Don't even say it shit cook." Zoro growls deeply.

"I didn't say a word." Sanji says with an air of utter innocence.

"You were looking at me like that. I'm not antisocial or grumpy, so don't say shit." Zoro argues back.

"I said nothing of the sort, the fact that you're about as pleasant as a pissed off grizzly to innocent strangers has nothing to do with it." Sanji grins at him.

"Why do I even talk to you?" The moss head groans unhappily.

"Cause you love me." Sanji snickers. He realises what he said just a moment after it leaves his mouth. Zoro and he only recently reached that L-word stage and now he's gone and blurted it out in front of Zoro's whole family. Perona makes a squeak and a whispered comment of 'cuuuuute' but Zoro ignores her.

"Lucky for you." Zoro grumbles, and stands up from the table.

"Whatever, I didn't think I was gonna see you today but do you want your present? I can go get it or…?" Zoro says leaving a gap for Sanji that he eagerly jumps on.

"Oh yeah! I'll come with you, I've got yours too let me go get it from my coat." Sanji exclaims, getting to his feet quickly and making an escape from Zoro's family. He likes them plenty and teasing Zoro with them is great and all but he's worried that he's going to end up screwing up in front of them and he'd really like his first encounter with Zoro's family to go well.

Zoro and Sanji make tracks towards Sanji's coat and it doesn't take long at all for Sanji to grab the little gold wrapped box and hightail it away further into the house with only a few shouted excuses on Zoro's behalf that turn into insults when his sister starts making fun of him about what they'll be getting up to in Zoro's room.

Zoro takes Sanji through a large lush living area with a giant TV and several games consoles near it. There are plush chairs and little warm reading lamps near them. There's a Christmas tree in the room too and the wreckage of wrapping paper that has missed being cleared up, showering the ground like multi-coloured metallic confetti. The tree looks like it's been decorated by Mihawk and Perona alone as the tinsel and half of the ornaments are pink whilst there are numerous black and red decorations, some of which are bats. Sanji slows down to look at it.

"Those two's handiwork?" Sanji asks, pointing at the tree.

"Gee, how could you tell? It's so subtle." Zoro says with a roll of his eyes.

"You never told me how…" Sanji trails off, trying to find a word to describe Zoro's family members.

"I never told you how weird they are?" Zoro finishes the sentence that Sanji was going for. The blonde laughs quietly and looks around the huge room a little more. His eyes land on a carefully laid out area on the mantle above the fireplace, there are three small candles in front of a framed photo. Sanji looks at it, wary of Zoro's reaction but his boyfriend doesn't make any move to stop him.

It's a gold framed black and white photo. The woman in it has Perona's eyes and Zoro's skin tone, she's laughing and there's a very young Perona in her lap who is pouting about something and the back of a small toddler held in her arms that Sanji assumes is Zoro. If he has to guess he'd say that the photo was taken by Mihawk.

"Dad brings that out every year, I don't even know where he keeps it the rest of the time." Zoro says quietly, referring to Mihawk as his parent for the first time that day.

"She looks happy." Sanji says after a moment.

"She does. I don't remember her really but… I'm glad that she was happy. From what I hear you would have liked her, she was apparently big on Christmas food and making thousands of cookies. Your kind of person." Zoro says in that earnest way that makes Sanji feel like he's been punched in the heart.

Zoro is so often a guarded man, prone to underreacting or ignoring his own feelings that when he does show a genuine weak spot it makes Sanji feel strange and light inside his heart. Zoro didn't do it at first but as their relationship has gone on Zoro's let his guard down more and more.

"I like the rest of your family too." Sanji points out. It's true, he does. Sure they're pretty quirky but they seem like good people. Besides, he could watch Zoro and Perona bicker for hours and still find it funny.

"They drive me mad. I'm honestly surprised that they didn't hold you down and torture you for information or put on some kind of goddamn séance to find out more about you." The moss ball complains.

Sanji turns to Zoro and look at him for a few silent moments. Zoro's answer feels wrong, it feels like a lie. He wants to know, but he doesn't know if he wants to ruin this. It is Christmas day after all and he's seen Zoro like he wanted to, met his family like he wanted to. Why rock the boat?

"Why is this meeting such a big deal to you?" Sanji asks eventually, being sensible was never his strongest suit.

"Because they're weird! We literally just got away from them, you know how embarrassing they are!" Zoro exclaims, waving a hand in the direction that they had just come from.

"Zoro, I hate to break it to you, but you're weird too. As is Zeff, and before you say it, I know you've said the same about me plenty of times too. So why is this different?" he presses.

Zoro winces and turns off to the side a little. His hand comes up to the back of his neck and he rubs it awkwardly and opens and shuts his mouth a few times before eventually speaking. He knows that Zoro's serious about whatever he's going to say.

"I don't know. It is because they're embarrassing but…" Zoro sighs, crouching down and picking a few ornaments off of the floor that had got knocked off at some point during the day. He's clearly doing it to distract himself.

"You introduced me to Zeff the same week that I met you, but it didn't really count because you work together, so it wasn't a big thing for you to do." Zoro says quietly as he hangs the ornaments carefully and still not looking at Sanji.

"But I had to choose when would be the right time to introduce you to them and I did want you to meet my family, it'd just be better if my family weren't those weirdos. So I hung off because I didn't want to scare you off at first but then I did want to introduce you to them and the longer I waited the harder it was and-" Zoro is starting to babble now but Sanji knows where this is going.

"And then you'd have to explain about why you'd never told them about me?" Sanji cuts in a little sharply, he sees Zoro flinch a little at that. It's a verbal barb that he had to have known was coming and, if Zoro has any sense, knew he deserved.

"Yeah… that too." The other man admits, standing up and actually facing Sanji now.

"Do you know how much I panicked when I realised that they didn't know? I thought I'd outed you!" Sanji yells and quickly slaps his hands over his mouth and glances warily in the direction that they came. He really needs to work on his indoor voice.

"Actually you did, they just don't care. As far as they know I've never dated anyone at all." Zoro points out and Sanji balks at that, he really did do such an awful thing to Zoro! What if Zoro's family hadn't been so accepting? He could have got his boyfriend kicked out of his home on Christmas Day of all days!

"Don't make that face, you'll give yourself a nosebleed out of stress and faint on me." The moss head sighs and shoves Sanji in the side. Sanji nods and swallows thickly, he can deal with his guilt later but there's a more important point here. Zoro had never told his family about any of his partners and he'd never brought any home, but he had wanted to take Sanji back. Admittedly he hadn't done so but… the intention was there. That had to mean something right?

"I didn't know when I was supposed to let you meet them, if you didn't work with Zeff then I could have just returned the favour when you introduced me to him, but you went and did it right away! I didn't want it to be too soon and scare you off but then I realised it was too late and they're still so weird and-" Zoro says in frustration, his hands running through his hair as he talks.

"Zoro… we've been dating nearly a year." Sanji says slowly as the thought starts to occur to him, seeping through his brain and working its way into him thoroughly.

"Yeah, I know it's too late now but-" Zoro replies, entirely missing Sanji's point. The other man sighs and falls into one of the huge red leather chairs. Sanji sits on one opposite him and fiddles with the gold wrapped box in his hands.

"That's not what I meant. You never really told me about the other people that you've dated before, and frankly I don't really care but… how long was your longest relationship?" he asks as he watches Zoro carefully.

"Uh… two months." Zoro admits sheepishly.

Sanji stares at him. It's not that Zoro is embarrassed about his family or that he thinks they're weird. Zoro was scared of getting this wrong and losing him, he's new to this, he's never got this far with anyone and the idiot is doing his best to do everything right without telling Sanji that he's out of his depth. Sanji gets that ache in his heart all over again. Zoro is a fucking idiot for not just telling him this, but goddamnit, Zoro is _his_ idiot.

He stands up and comes over to Zoro's chair and drops himself into Zoro's lap. He leans in and kisses Zoro, softly and earnestly as his wrists twine together on straight arms behind Zoro's head. When he pulls back a little to look at Zoro his boyfriend is looking up at him with a completely bemused expression on his face.

"You don't have any idea what's going on right now, do you?" Sanji laughs softly.

"Honestly? No. But… I like it." Zoro replies, his hands rubbing gently up Sanji's side. The blonde laughs and gets up, pulling Zoro to his feet as well.

"Come on, presents." Sanji reminds him, holding up his wrapped up present for Zoro and giving it a little shake for emphasis. Zoro leads him out of the room and up a big ornate staircase, the floor is actually polished marble out here.

"How come you never told me that you're loaded?" Sanji wonders aloud.

"I'm not, Mihawk is. I mean… I could use the money if I wanted but I don't usually care. Does it make a difference?" Zoro asks, looking over his shoulder at Sanji.

"Hell yeah it does!" Sanji exclaims loudly.

"If you have money you've got no excuse for wearing clothes as worn out and ugly as yours! Buy some nice things and replace the ones that have holes in the for fuck's sake!" Sanji wails despairingly.

"I never heard you complain before." Zoro points out. Sanji's eyebrow twitches in irritation.

"That's because you never listen to me. Though I do like your clothes sometimes…" Sanji trails off thoughtfully, baiting Zoro to ask.

"Go on, when?" Zoro sighs, giving in and leading him down a hallway.

"When they're on my bedroom floor. They're so awful, why do you think I'm always so eager to get you out of them?" Sanji chuckles with a perverted look at Zoro.

"You're not really convincing me to buy new ones here. Come on in." Zoro says, opening a door and going inside, holding it open for Sanji as he does.

Zoro's room looks just like Sanji expected it to. For the most part it's neat and organised, the only real exception being the overflowing laundry bin in the corner where it looks like he's just been throwing clothes when he's done with them.

There are katanas on Zoro's wall, displayed with a level of perfection and care that Sanji has come to expect from Zoro. There's not a lot of personal things in the room, no knickknacks or childhood toys sitting about. What Zoro does have is a spreading patch of photos on his wall which catches Sanji's attention.

The collection clearly started with a corkboard with photos pinned on it that's just grown from there. As of right now there's a mass of photos stuck to the wall that is at least a metre wide in all directions. Sanji stands and stares at it for a little bit.

There are pictures of Zoro and Perona together, usually with a friendly sort of hostility together but here and there are a few photos where the two are together and neither of them have seen the camera. One in particular catches Zoro's eye, the two of them are on some exotic looking beach and Perona is leaning forward, shadowed against the sun whilst Zoro is stretched out next to her, propped up on one elbow as he talks to her about something, his hand frozen in a gesture. Despite their aggressive nature the two siblings seem a lot alike, perhaps it's why they don't get on all that well.

From the inside out Sanji can chart the order that Zoro met their friends in, pictures of Zoro and Luffy begin near the centre with Nami and then Usopp being added into pictures and so on as the mess of photos spirals out. Sanji is surprised and touched to see a bunch of photos of him, not just him and Zoro together, but of him alone. There's a picture of him that startles him, he has no memory of Zoro taking it at all and he had no idea that it even existed. It's a shot of him in the Baratie kitchen cooking. He's wearing his chefs whites and he's flambéing something, the shot catching the flaming food mid-air as Sanji flicks it around in the pan with a quirk of his wrist. The flames alone make it a beautiful shot but it's the expression on his own face that makes Sanji pause. He'd expected a look of concentration or determination but instead it's a look of utter peace. He looks like the calm in the centre of the storm of activity he can see in the background of the picture, he's in his own world. It is the best picture that anyone has ever taken of him.

"It's not very well wrapped, you know I'm not good with that stuff." Zoro says, having not noticed Sanji's fascination at all. The man straightens up and pulls out a rather badly wrapped box about the size of his palm. Sanji takes it from him and sits on the edge of Zoro's bed to open it.

"I didn't want to get you anything for your kitchen because I'd probably pick something you already had or wasn't any good or that you didn't need. Nami said that wine would be good but I don't know shit about that and you'd have laughed at me if I got you something awful." Zoro mumbles awkwardly as Sanji peels back the wrapping.

Underneath the wrapping is a matte black box with some name that Sanji doesn't recognise stamped in the top. He opens it and inside there is a silver bracelet. The thick flat silver links clearly denote it as a man's bracelet rather than a woman's one but Sanji finds himself a little perplexed, he's not a big jewellery person. He takes it from the box, feeling the heavy links run through his fingers until he comes to a silver backed glass bar that's about the length of Sanji's thumb nail. He curiously turns it over and peers at the glass. It's hollow and there's something granular in it filling up the whole space.

"I know how obsessed you are with the ocean." Zoro says, shuffling over so that he's got one leg crossed up against Sanji's back whilst the other presses into Sanji's leg. Zoro's arms wrap around him to his front and it feels like he's almost wearing Zoro wrapped around him like a blanket. Zoro takes the bracelet from Sanji's hands and undoes the clasp holding it closed.

"So this is a bit of all of the oceans." Zoro continues as he pulls the bracelet around Sanji's wrist.

"Sand?" Sanji guesses, tilting his head to look at the glass more easily.

"No, salt. From every ocean." Zoro explains.

Oh shit. A while ago Sanji had been on a big impassioned ramble to Zoro about a shipment of imported salt not arriving and had gone on to explain just how much the salt from each place differs and exactly how important it is to the flavour of food and how, no, he cannot just substitute that salt for table salt in his dish. He'd thought that Zoro had glazed over and tuned him out but perhaps he was planning this.

This thing has to be custom made, it has to be. Which means that Zoro didn't just see something that made him think of Sanji, he'd thought of Sanji and come up with an idea of something to get him that was uniquely him. Zoro clicks the clasp shut and Sanji feels himself welling up with emotion.

Sanji turns as far as he can and catches Zoro's face in his hand, kissing him as hard and as deeply as he can. Zoro is perfect, he's amazing and… and Sanji absolutely cannot give him his present after that.

"I'll have to give you your present later!" Sanji says quickly, scrambling over the duvet for the little gold wrapped box that he had brought up.

"Oh no you don't!" Zoro shouts, toppling Sanji over as the two of them scrabble and wrestle for the box. Unfortunately Zoro is bigger and heavier than him and he manages to pin Sanji to the duvet and crawl up him to grab the box, ignoring Sanji's clawing hands trying to stop him.

"No, don't! It's shit compared to yours, let me get you something new!" Sanji wails unhappily, but Zoro is having none of it. He presses a kiss to Sanji's cheek and bites his ear as Sanji hears the sound of paper being torn off. Sanji whines miserably into the warm skin of Zoro's neck as he hears the pop of the box open.

Inside the box is the watch that Sanji had chosen for Zoro. It's gold, just like Zoro's earrings and his eyes. It's not that money matters but it is an expensive watch, Sanji had put a decent little chunk of his savings into it. He wanted Zoro to have something nice and something classy but considering as Zoro lives in a goddamn castle it's chump change to him.

"Holy shit Sanji, this is expensive, do you know how much money this is?" Zoro exclaims, leaning up off of Sanji to look down at him in wide eyed shock.

"Of course I do, I bought it. But it's nothing like this… my gift is dumb in comparison. Besides, you could probably buy a thousand of those and-" Sanji mumbles in embarrassment, he fiddles with his new bracelet anxiously.

"Is… is that a compass on one of those faces?" Zoro asks as he interrupts Sanji, turning the watch this way and that. That makes Sanji grin despite himself.

"I had a choice of what to put there and when they said that a compass was an option I couldn't resist. Maybe you'll get a little less lost now." Sanji laughs despite himself.

"You're an asshole." Zoro grumbles, but leans down and kisses him anyway. Sanji sighs and kisses him back. Zoro isn't one for false sincerity, if Zoro didn't like his present then he'd have been able to read it on his face. Sanji still feels embarrassed about the cost disparity but he knows that Zoro isn't going to press the issue. Frankly Zoro doesn't seem to really be aware of his own incredible wealth at all, he clearly doesn't think about it. Perhaps Zoro just appreciates the gesture or the understanding of how much of Sanji's own savings it was.

Zoro's hand slides up the inside of Sanji's nice shirt as he kisses the corner of the blonde's jaw.

"So…" Zoro murmurs into Sanji's ear, making him shiver.

"I think we need some comparison here. You say that my clothes look good on your bedroom floor but we don't know about yours on mine." Zoro says with a grin that Sanji can actually hear.

"You've got some guts saying that you know." Sanji says, sliding his hands down Zoro's sides. Zoro pauses, apparently unsure if that means yes or no.

"But I'm still certain that my clothes on the floor will look better than your clothes, my clothes are just better. I'm stylish and you dress like a hobo, no matter how rich you are." Sanji asserts, peeling Zoro's shirt up off of him, the green haired man sitting back on Sanji's hips to give Sanji the room to pull it up off of his arms.

Zoro shifts his hands and undoes Sanji's shirt button by button, stroking Sanji's skin as it's revealed to him. Sanji leans up a little and Zoro slides the shirt fully off and throws it on the floor. Sanji peers over the side of the bed, his own classy and tasteful shirt is splayed on the floor next to Zoro's faded t-shirt.

"See?" Sanji points out. Zoro frowns.

"I think we need more clothes to settle this argument." Zoro says slowly.

"I suppose that's fair." Sanji concedes, his hands going to the button on Zoro's jeans.

"Sounds good." Zoro agrees, his own hands doing the same.

Sanji really loves his bracelet, but getting to have this moment with Zoro, to make this milestone of meeting his family and spending Christmas together… that's worth way more. He can't wait to see what New Years turns out like.


End file.
